Took last night off because my allergies were killing me, and not much to report tonight except the first coat of Urethane on those shelves, and a basement that smells like solvents. I cracked a window, but maybe I should do the rest of these outside, this weekend, if the fabled Seattle sunshine ever comes out.

Also got some “antique brass” wall plate screws to replace these old ones that had been painted over by my landlord twenty times.

I also received a couple of LPs that will go up on the walls leading into the space, as album art: Arthur Lyman's “Taboo” and Martin Denny's “Primitiva” (with covers in very good condition). They will be joining Martin Denny's “Exotic Percussion” and Arthur Lyman's “Pearly Shells”. I already own the music on CD, but I wanted the big LP covers to show off in frames. Now to find some LP wall frames that aren't completely out of place…
_________________@bobtiki on TweetFace, et al.
In progress: Pele Tiki MugKilauea Cove

Been busy, but mostly putting urethane on things. Hopefully in the next night or two I'll have the shelves and LEDs back up again, so the nook will be back to basic usefulness, and I'll do an update post.

As I said on Instagram, I think I'm about two days away from “useable space,” and four months away from “done.”

I mean, if nothing else, I assume I'll be bringing something stellar for the walls back from Hukilau. _________________@bobtiki on TweetFace, et al.
In progress: Pele Tiki MugKilauea Cove

The nook area isn't done, by any means, but I think I'm going to call it useable again.

Let's start with the good picture:

Some cables need to be hidden, but I think it's starting to look rather decent.

Since last we met, I've been busy, so this will be a photo-heavy post.

Got the rest of the new wood shelves cut and stained and urethane'd. I found it handy to screw loosely into the back of the shelves that were going to be against the wall, so I could stand them off a bit and get to all of the surfaces:

Set them outside for about three days under the porch awning, so the urethane could outgas for a while, and then brought them inside and mounted them:

Next up was getting the faerie light-style LEDs re-mounted to the bottom of the duct. Some big strapping zip-ties (24" “Duct Fastener” model) provided the framework, and up they went:

Only, I want to hide all of that, so I took the scrap wood that had been temporarily holding the shelves, and put together a little structure that would friction-fit over the face of the duct, and provide a little decor. Needs some finishing touches, but seems to fit ok:

The glass shelves for the mugs had gone back up, but I want to hide those a bit as well. I built three shelf-edge facades out of thinner bamboo, which serves to:

A) Hide the fact that the shelves are glass
B) While still allowing light to pass through the levels, and
C) Shielding the LEDs on the shelves from direct view, so you only see the effects.

Next I put some reed above the LEDs, basically a friction fit by pushing the fat little LEDs through the reed. The bamboo facade also holds up the front edge of the reed a bit.

After that, I put the little rattan balls back on the LEDs, and sprayed all of this kindling with fire retardant spray — which kinda leaves a bit of crusty white residue on everything, so I'm not super thrilled about that, but it's not too noticeable, and better than burning down my house, I guess.

After that, I got the Raspberry Pi back in place, and power going to the LEDs in a safer way then running it through the breadboard, and the result is as you see above! You can see the code I'm using on the RPi on my Github page for this project, if you want the technical nitty gritty.

Here's a rough panoramic view so far, with a crappy work light standing in for where I'd like to place an amber fish float lamp. I also put a woven hat over the ugly bare bulb on the right, until I can get together a proper lamp shade for that spot:

Lots of little touches yet to come, not to mention hooking up a smoke machine and programming some lighting events with the volcano and such.

ALSO, I am not sticking with the “Lava Lounge” name for the overall space (including the screening room) since it has some unpleasant connotations that I had forgotten about. That said, I would like to stick with something volcano-themed. Suggestions welcome! JenTiki came up with Kapu Kilauea, which is a strong contender so far, but I'd love to hear some more ideas. _________________@bobtiki on TweetFace, et al.
In progress: Pele Tiki MugKilauea Cove

I *did* try to work out the way to duct from the fog machine to the volcano location, a few weeks ago, and I determined that it wasn't going to work the way I wanted without bringing a reservoir box and fans into the mix. However, I'm going to try a smoke unit from a large-scale model train first, since that should fit in the volcano mug, and give me the output I want. Tests soon.

Today, there is good news and bad news. I made a lot of progress on the Raspberry Pi programming, and I can play an animation on the critical LEDs pretty smoothly. However, It may all be for naught. Once I got the control buttons wired up, it seems that the code I need to use to detect on the button input pins is also screwing up the control signal pins for the overhead LEDs (the ones in the rattan balls).

I don't yet know if this is solvable, or if I'm going to need to switch to a real-time control system like an Arduino, … which I was really hoping I could avoid.

Anyway, not much to show, unless you want to have a look at the latest Python code. That August 20th deadline is looming closer and closer.

With a little help from some friends, I got that last LED control issue sorted out, and here's a video to prove that it works! This is not the final look, but proving that the buttons work, and that I can load an animation video file (that I created in After Effects) and play it back smoothly on the LEDs.

Also tested a little smoke generator that is made for model ships and trains, and… it's not going to be up to snuff for the volcano. So, big smoke reservoir and fans to pump it on cue, I guess? Testing continues.
_________________@bobtiki on TweetFace, et al.
In progress: Pele Tiki MugKilauea Cove

I have no idea about programming but I do have a Raspberry Pi. Didn't know it could be used for this type of cool stuff though. I'll be following this thread keenly for updates or how-to's, love a cool volcano effect.